The U.S. Needs to Produce an F1 Team

Okay, Motorsports 101 students, dig out your pads and pencils, boot up your laptops, and engage your brains. Here is a quick six-question quiz that will determine whether you understand anything more about automobile racing than what you learned in the telecast of the Daytona 500. You will find the answers at the bottom of the page. If you can't answer at least two of them correctly, you might want to consider another field of interest, perhaps flower arranging or ballroom dancing.

1. Name the two drivers, the marques, and the Grands Prix in which all-American teams won.

2. Name the last American driver to compete in Formula 1, the car, and the year in which he drove on the circuit.

3. Name the two Americans, the year, and the type of car they drove to win the Drivers' World Championship.

6. Name the last American driver to finish a Grand Prix in the top three in a car entered by an American team.

Based on the data confirmed in Tim Considine's superb book American Grand Prix Racing: A Century of Drivers & Cars (Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International, 1997), your answer will result in some discouraging revelations. The sad fact is that Yankee presence in world-class F1 motorsports has, for all intents and purposes, been nonexistent for almost a decade.

That reality recently came into focus with the running of the U.S. Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last September. There the closest Americans to the action sat in the VIP suites while witnessing an invasion of racing teams from every corner of the globe.

Meanwhile, local heroes such as Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Robbie Gordon, Jason Leffler, Ryan Newman, and scores of others are seeking their fortunes on the sprawling ovals in NASCAR territory.

I confess to being a tepid fan of Formula 1.

The cars resemble surfboards mounted on shopping carts and possess such incredible braking and cornering powers that passing has become as rare as a Pamela Anderson Oscar nomination. The drivers are talented, but with the exception of Michael Schumacher and former CART champion Juan Pablo Montoya, they might as well be names randomly picked from the Buenos Aires phone book. Yet, love it or hate it, boring competition or technological overkill of the most arcane sort, Formula 1 is the big enchilada of motorsports.

America ought to be in the game.

This nation should be competing in Formula 1 for two important reasons. Both transcend the witless attractions of enthusiasts who care only about noisy automobiles ripping around a racetrack. The stakes are much higher and have international political and economic ramifications.

As the automobile industry becomes increasingly globalized, the domestic automakers-General Motors, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler (in fact, German-owned)-are facing threats from the Japanese and South Koreans at the bottom of the market and the Germans and Japanese at the top. An American Formula 1 effort would lend marketing impact and enormous promotional support to our products within and outside of the automobile industry.

Second, Formula 1 can have significant influence as a propaganda tool. This was first employed to great effect by the Nazis with the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams from 1934 to 1939.

There is little question that, although done on a less organized basis, Honda, in both international automobile and motorcycle competition during the 1960s, brought enormous credibility to the Japanese motoring industry.

And who can argue that Ferrari's power in Formula 1 has not benefited the Italian automobile business far beyond the world of motor racing?

Formula 1 is a significant stand-alone industry in Great Britain. According to the London Financial Times, the British motorsports industry employs 38,500 people and generates a significant contribution to the nation's GDP.

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*AccuPayment estimates payments under various scenarios for budgeting and informational purposes only. AccuPayment does not state credit or lease terms that are available from a creditor or lessor, and AccuPayment is not an offer or promotion of a credit or lease transaction.